Trump’s funding threats to SF over sanctuary laws meet...

FILE - In this Feb. 8, 2017, a woman crosses the street outside of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. President Donald Trump's comments about so-called "sanctuary cities" were scrutinized ... more

FILE - In this Feb. 8, 2017, a woman crosses the street outside of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. President Donald Trump's comments about so-called "sanctuary cities" were scrutinized at the federal appeals court hearing on Wednesday, April 11, 2018, to determine whether the president's executive order threatening to cut funding from states and cities that limit cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities is legal. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, file) less

Photo: Jeff Chiu, Associated Press

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Click through the slideshow to see when sanctuary cities' policies have made it in the news.

Photo: Peter Prato, San Francisco Chronicle

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On Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017, President Donald Trump signs an executive order to cut off federal funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" and also to provide funding for a border wall with Mexico. Read more ... more

On Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017, President Donald Trump signs an executive order to cut off federal funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" and also to provide funding for a border wall with Mexico. Read more here. less

Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, STF

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Less than an hour after Trump's executive order, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee delivered an impassioned speech defending the city's sanctuary policies. "I am here today to say we are still a sanctuary city,” Lee ... more

Less than an hour after Trump's executive order, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee delivered an impassioned speech defending the city's sanctuary policies. "I am here today to say we are still a sanctuary city,” Lee said at a City Hall news conference. “We stand by our sanctuary city because we want everybody to feel safe and utilize the services they deserve, including education and health care. ... It is my obligation to keep our city united, keep it strong ... crime doesn’t know documentation. Disease doesn’t know documentation.” Read more here. less

Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle

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In April 2017, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration order to withhold funding from communities that limit cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities, saying the president has no authority to ... more

In April 2017, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration order to withhold funding from communities that limit cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities, saying the president has no authority to attach new conditions to federal spending. Moina Shaiq holds a sign at a rally outside of City Hall in San Francisco on Tuesday, April 25, 2017. Read more here. less

Photo: AP Photo &#x2014; Jeff Chiu, File

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On Monday, Nov. 20, 2017 a federal judge permanently blocked President Donald Trump's executive order to cut funding from cities that limit cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities. San Francisco and Santa ... more

On Monday, Nov. 20, 2017 a federal judge permanently blocked President Donald Trump's executive order to cut funding from cities that limit cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities. San Francisco and Santa Clara County had filed lawsuits. Protesters hold signs as they yell at a rally outside of City Hall in San Francisco. less

Photo: Jeff Chiu, Associated Press

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In an undated handout photo, Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, who was acquitted of murder and manslaughter charges in the killing of Kathryn Steinle on Nov. 30, 2017. Steinle's July ... more

In an undated handout photo, Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, who was acquitted of murder and manslaughter charges in the killing of Kathryn Steinle on Nov. 30, 2017. Steinle's July 2015 death on a San Francisco pier became a touchstone in the national debate over immigration. Zarate was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Read more here. less

President Trump sent a fundraising email blasting cities like San Francisco and Seattle for "breaking our country's immigration laws" the morning after Jose Ines Garcia Zarate was found not guilty of murder and ... more

President Trump sent a fundraising email blasting cities like San Francisco and Seattle for "breaking our country's immigration laws" the morning after Jose Ines Garcia Zarate was found not guilty of murder and manslaughter in the Kate Steinle trial. less

Photo: Screenshot

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Pier 14 in San Francisco on December 1, 2017, the morning following the acquittal of Garcia Zarate for the murder of Kate Steinle on July 15, 2015. A memorial was erected the previous evening by a group ... more

Pier 14 in San Francisco on December 1, 2017, the morning following the acquittal of Garcia Zarate for the murder of Kate Steinle on July 15, 2015. A memorial was erected the previous evening by a group identifying itself as the "Bay Area Alt Right." The memorial was later removed. Read more here. less

Photo: Peter Prato, Special to The Chronicle

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At least two fake posters that were placed beneath longstanding "Welcome to California" signs on state freeways were removed in early Jan. 2018. The signs, first noticed by a handful of Twitter users, read ... more

At least two fake posters that were placed beneath longstanding "Welcome to California" signs on state freeways were removed in early Jan. 2018. The signs, first noticed by a handful of Twitter users, read "Official Sanctuary State," and "Felons, Illegals, and MS13 Welcome! Democrats Need The Votes!" Read the full story here. less

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On Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2018, the Trump administration threatend to issue subpoenas to San Francisco, Berkeley, the state of California and 20 other jurisdictions across the country if they don’t hand over ... more

On Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2018, the Trump administration threatend to issue subpoenas to San Francisco, Berkeley, the state of California and 20 other jurisdictions across the country if they don’t hand over documents related to their communication with federal immigration authorities. Read more here. less

Photo: Richard Drew, AP

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A sign mocking San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy was hung early Sunday, Jan. 28, 2018 over the Yerba Buena Island Tunnel in San Francisco. Read more here.

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A sign mocking San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy was hung early Sunday, Jan. 28, 2018 over the Yerba Buena Island Tunnel in San Francisco.

Courts throughout the nation are considering President Trump’s efforts to compel unwilling cities and states to help carry out his hard-line immigration policies. But his most far-reaching decree, a January 2017 order to cut off federal funds to San Francisco and other sanctuary cities, received an apparently chilly reception from a federal appeals court Wednesday.

Trump issued the executive order five days after taking office, telling Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Department of Homeland Security to make sure that “sanctuary jurisdictions” are “not eligible to receive” any federal grants.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick III of San Francisco issued a nationwide injunction blocking the order in April 2017. Attorneys in Sessions’ office had argued that Trump was referring only to a few federal grants, but Orrick said the president’s words, and his later statement on Fox News that a funding cutoff would be “a weapon” to force a change in sanctuary policies, showed that he was threatening local governments with losses of huge sums that he had no legal authority to withdraw.

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The federal government funds a wide range of state and local programs, including schools, transportation, health care and social services. San Francisco receives about $2 billion a year in federal aid, one-fifth of its overall budget, and Santa Clara County, the other plaintiff in the suit against the Trump administration, receives $1.7 billion, more than one-third of its revenue.

On Wednesday, a high-ranking Justice Department lawyer, Assistant Attorney General Chad Readler, told the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that Trump hadn’t made any threats or withdrawn any funding and had merely directed Sessions to carry out the law. Members of the three-judge panel seemed skeptical.

Chief Judge Sidney Thomas said Trump had made statements about withholding money from sanctuary cities, and the actions he took threatened their funding. Thomas also said the Trump administration appeared to be claiming authority that goes beyond federal law by seeking to require cities and counties to cooperate with immigration officers or lose their funding.

If Orrick’s interpretation of Trump’s order was accurate, Thomas asked Readler, “would you agree that the executive order was unconstitutional?”

Perhaps, Readler replied, but Trump’s order was actually much narrower and applied only to specific Justice Department and Homeland Security grants.

In that case, Thomas asked, why does the administration object to an injunction against withdrawing other categories of federal funding?

Judge Ronald Gould asked Readler whether Sessions, at Trump’s directive, would have the constitutional authority to strip sanctuary cities of funding for education, health care and disaster relief. Readler said no such order had been issued.

Gould, however, also asked San Francisco’s lawyer, Deputy City Attorney Christine Van Aken, why the city and Santa Clara County needed a nationwide injunction to protect their funding. Van Aken replied that Trump’s order had nationwide impact.

The third panel member, Judge Ferdinand Fernandez, asked no questions during the 40-minute hearing.

More than 300 cities and counties nationwide have limited the cooperation their law enforcement agencies are allowed to extend to federal immigration officials seeking to detain and deport immigrants for crimes or illegal entry.

In a separate case before Orrick, the Trump administration is seeking to withdraw several million dollars from San Francisco and Santa Clara County for refusing to notify immigration officials of the planned release of undocumented immigrants in local custody. Orrick refused to dismiss the local governments’ case last month and has scheduled a hearing for September on whether the administration has the power to revoke the grants. A federal judge in Chicago has ruled in a similar case that no such advance notice to immigration officials is required by federal law.

The Trump administration has also sued the state of California, in federal court in Sacramento, seeking to overturn state laws that limit local governments’ authority to cooperate with immigration agents or allow them access to local jails and prohibit employers from allowing federal agents to enter private workplaces without a judicial warrant.

At Wednesday’s hearing, lawyers for San Francisco and Santa Clara County urged the court to reject the administration’s attempt to interpret Trump’s order as merely a directive to the Justice Department to target a few federal grants.

San Francisco has had to set aside substantial funds as a hedge against the prospect of federal withdrawal, and “shouldn’t be required simply to trust the federal government on this continuing threat,” said Van Aken, the city’s lawyer.

Danielle Goldstein, a deputy Santa Clara County counsel, noted that Trump had commended the city of Miami for revoking its sanctuary policy because it feared the loss of federal funds.

Trump’s executive order, Goldstein said, forces her county to decide whether to follow its own policy or “risk financial ruin.”

Bob Egelko has been a reporter since June 1970. He spent 30 years with the Associated Press, covering news, politics and occasionally sports in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, and legal affairs in San Francisco from 1984 onward. He worked for the San Francisco Examiner for five months in 2000, then joined The Chronicle in November 2000.

His beat includes state and federal courts in California, the Supreme Court and the State Bar. He has a law degree from McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and is a member of the bar. Coverage has included the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, the appointment of Rose Bird to the state Supreme Court and her removal by the voters, the death penalty in California and the battles over gay rights and same-sex marriage.